Scientists are ready to present a new kind of powerful antibiotics

The enzyme LpxC is crucially important for outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria formation. Recently it became known that scientists of Duke University managed to block the activity of this enzyme. This was the first step towards obtaining antibiotics a new class of antibiotics generating. As Medportal notes, the substance, blocking LpxC, perfectly handled with the bacteria that were not susceptible to standard antibiotics.
The new antibiotic substance has the operating name LPC-069. It has shown special activity against the bacteria of Yersinia pestis, causing plague. It is important to note that LPC-069 can be used in quite high dose without much toxicity. There is another active substance, which is named LPC. Efficacy was proved while laboratory tests, but there wasn’t any progress while animal experiments.
Although LPC-058 delayed the development of infection, it led to side effects, including diarrhea, the accumulation of white blood cells in the lungs and intestines, as well as to liver damage when using higher dosages. In the meantime, LPC-069, unlike LPC-058, hadn’t caused serious side effects in any of the dosages.
In general, the compounds had demonstrated efficacy against more than a dozen pathogenic bacterial species, including those resistant to drugs.
The scientists stress that LpxC is one of the six basic enzymes in the lipid group A (Raetz) in gram-negative bacteria. There are reasons to believe that other enzymes of this group can be an excellent target for drug exposure.